It’s only been five months since Dulcé Sloan started working on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah as a correspondent, but she’s already a fan favorite.
The Miami-born talent, who partially grew up in Atlanta, pulls from real-life stories to make hilarious jokes on politics, race and gender norms. She’s driven, honest, hilarious, and just might be your new favorite comedienne.
Learn more about her, below:
She was told by a comedian to be a comedian.
“I got into comedy because a comic told me I was a comic,” Sloan told ESSENCE. “A friend of mine worked at the Funny Farm, which is a comedy club that used to be open in Atlanta and I would just go and hang out with her. I met some of the comics and I would just talk and hang out with them. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re funny. You know how to tell a story. You know where a joke is.'”
She’s bilingual and was a translator before going into comedy full time.
After graduating from Brenau University in Gainesville, GA she went into administrative work, flexing her Spanish-speaking skills. “[I was in] bilingual customer service, or bilingual admin,” Sloan said about her day job before comedy. “I picked it up when I was younger. I picked it up immediately and even to the point where my teachers, in the fifth grade, I would translate stuff for her.”
Road tripping is nothing new for her.
For the first year of her comedy career, Sloan traveled constantly doing shows at colleges and intimate comedy clubs. “I was on the road the entire time for most of 2016,” she said. “I was on eight planes in ten days. You get to the point where you’re like, ‘I don’t even know, is this exhausted? I think I’m past it.’ I was running around so much with just doing… I did 40 colleges last year.”
Korean films are her jam.
The 34 year old is currently trying to learn how to speak Korean, and she may very well be on her way, having watched a ton of Korean film. “I’ve just been watching them since I was like 14 or 15,” she said. “I watch a lot of Korean dramas and I just like talking to the lady at the beauty supply store, basically. I know a few words in Korean and every time I walk in the beauty supply store, no matter where I am, I just say ‘hi’ in Korean and they’ll respond back and go, ‘What, what just happened?’ They get real suspicious like, ‘Who taught you Korean?’ I’m like, it’s not a secret language.”
Trevor Noah wanted her hired right after meeting her.
Sloan did the work of performing at small and large comedy clubs before getting a team —manager, lawyer, etc— to manage her. A Comedy Central Roast battle got her noticed by Noah, who had her come in for a test read. “I did [a piece on] how it’s hard to be Black and patriotic,” she said. “I started the piece —because since I’m a ridiculous and tacky human— I had July fourth nails. They were red, white and blue rhinestones on one of them, airbrushed with fireworks, the most ridiculous. I was like you know what, I’m going in, it’s my birthday, about to get my nails did. Just insane. He was like, ‘But how, your birthday is July fourth?’ And I just go, ‘Don’t let these celebratory nails fool you, Trevor. I love this country! But they’re killing us, literally.’ I got a fist bump from Trevor and I leave and they asked me to hang out for a second and they’re like, ‘Alright, you can go.’ My flight was in like three hours. When I’m on the way to the airport, like two hours after auditioning, my manager and six other people, my entire team is on the phone and they’re like, ‘You’ve got the job!’ And I’m like, ‘There’s too many people on the phone for me to not get it!'”